Blood, Guts, and Gore

My first day on OB:

• I arrived at 0500 and started prerounding. It took me the full 1.5 hours to see 2 whole patients. "Are you peeing and pooping? Aww, what a cute baby! How is your pain? Oh, the baby is so cute!"
• At 0630, the residents from night shift checked out to the day shift. By 0800, I had already seen several patients, but now it was time for attending rounds. I staggered into the residents' lounge carrying a stack of heavy plastic charts and prepared for the pimping. "Why do we give Rhogam? How much bleeding is allowed for postpartum bleeding, and how much for hemorrhage? What are the indications for IUD placement? What are the causes of postpartum fever?" etc, etc, etc. I love getting pimped on my first day of a rotation.
• By 1030, I had watched a delivery (OP, epidural, 2nd degree lac), examined another pregnant lady, broken her bag of water, and done other stuff I've already forgotten. I started thinking, man, I'm hungry, is it lunchtime yet? But I was deeply saddened that it was only 1030. My Cheerios had worn off hours earlier.
• At 1200, one of my residents sent me to the lunch "lecture" to swipe food. I came back with two pizzas (I had already eaten one piece) and a sack full of cold drinks. I felt like a huge sleaze, sneaking into a small room and walking out with half the remaining food.
• I saw another delivery (OA, epidural, easiest delivery EVER), watched a wound exploration (post-c/s infection), and then we were "allowed" to go to lecture.
• Lecture was actually for the residents, not the students, yet our attendance was required. We had a lecture at 1400, another at 1430, and then a 45 minute break, followed by another at 1600. *yawn*
• At 1700, we had to attend Grand Rounds. The topic: Avoiding the State Board of Medical Investigations. Some blowhard lawyer told lame anecdotes about physicians being reported to the state board for trivial complaints and how he miraculously saved them from loss of license, divorce, hell, etc. The attendings were fascinated, the residents gossiped, and all 5 of the med students had pulled out Case Files in the back row.

I got home at 1830, 13.5 hours after I left. It was a long damn day. I spent all day chasing residents back and forth from L&D to Triage, trying to figure out which patient was getting examined where and when my patients were delivering and when new patients had shown up in triage and WHAT THE HOLY HELL WAS GOING ON???!!!

Thought of the day: childbirth is an icky, icky process. Icky.